Page 9 of Reclaiming Love

Chapter 6

All she could do when she returned home was to collapse on the couch alongside Heather.

“Hey!” Heather admonished her, as she carefully painted her toes while reality TV spewed from the screen.

“Sorry.” Melissa hadn’t noticed this delicate operation. She watched her friend wipe away the blurred edge which she’d caused.

“No date with the mysterious Matt tonight?” Heather asked, as she slowly painted fluorescent orange with concentrated precision.

“No,” replied Melissa. “I had a crazy day.”

“You have lots of crazy days.” Heather stopped long enough to give her an accusatory glare. It used to be that she and Heather would catch the bus together downtown. They’d been lucky enough to find Diana, a biotech research scientist who had advertised for two females to share her beautiful condo —a place they’d never have been able to afford otherwise, not within such close distance to downtown San Francisco.

“It’s even worse now that Nadine’s back.” Melissa closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. The gym workout first thing in the morning hadn’t helped.

“And you thought things would slow down a little when she got back.”

Relatively speaking.She had thought they might. But whenever Nadine was around, the pace picked up. She’d assumed it would be easier having her boss in the same country so that she no longer had to send documents back and forth and be mindful of Paris time.

Heather patted her knee. “Don’t worry, it’ll be Christmas soon. Your mom will fawn all over you when you go back.”

Three more weeks to go. Melissa looked forward to the break. She walked into the kitchen, finding herself hungrier than ever. She’d missed lunch. Not on purpose—she loved her food—but because she’d been so busy, and by the time she stopped to take a breath, it was late afternoon. She’d started counting calories, something she’d never done before, once Matt had put the idea of consuming no more than half her usual intake a couple of days a week. She didn’t diet. But she’d tried this out for a few weeks and it hadn’t been so bad. Coupled with her working out regularly, her body was firmer, less fluffy than usual. The fitness regime was definitely working and she was living proof.

“I made macaroni and cheese.” Heather’s voice carried over from the living room. The whole downstairs was open-plan with the kitchen separated from the living room by an island. Two comfy buttercream-colored sofas, placed adjacent to one another in an L-shape, also demarcated the start of the living room area.

“I didn’t know whether you’d come home today, so I ate without you.” A reference to her not always being at home, even during weekday nights. Melissa ignored the comment.

She contemplated the macaroni and cheese, took the glass lid off and looked longingly at the nicely golden pasta. Screw reducing calories. She touched the pot. It was still warm. She piled up her plate and sat down at the kitchen island.

Heather walked over, carefully lifting up the bottoms of her lounge pants to prevent her toenails from smudging. She gave Melissa a devilish grin. “When?”

“When what?”

“When am I going to meet this boyfriend of yours? I mean”—a tone of exaggerated intrigue peppered her words—“now that things are all serious between you both.”

Melissa ignored the drama in her friend’s voice and didn’t rise to the bait. She didn’t feel so confident that a meeting was going to take place anytime soon. She’d run the idea by Matt a few times—suggested that he come back to her place since she didn’t always want to end up at his. He shared with two guys she’d met briefly a few times. But Matt’s place was small and cramped. It was a typical guy’s place, his room full of computers and hardware, messy, with clothing and shoes and books and bags strewn all over.

It wasn’t only that. She liked to think he cared enough about her, about their relationship to at least show some interest in where she lived. She liked to think he’d consider coming over to hers so that she didn’t always have to travel back home late at night. She liked to think he cared about her.

He always avoided the topic and so far had never taken her up on the offer. He didn’t seem particularly interested in meeting her friends: not Heather, whom she considered her best friend out here, nor her friends from work.

Come to think of it, Matt hadn’t shown any interest in meeting anyone in her life. “I’m not sure.” Melissa lifted a forkful of macaroni cheese to her mouth. “Besides, things aren’t all that serious,” she replied, wondering how it was possible that macaroni could make her so happy.

“You’ve spent more time with him than with any of the others. And he got you to go to the gym!”

Ignoring that comment, she asked her, “When did you make this?”

“When I got bored waiting for you. Diana’s off in Japan, god knows how long for, so it’s just the two of us for a few weeks I guess and ever since you found love,” she said in a singsong manner, “I’ve got a lot of time to myself.”

The good thing about Diana was that they hardly saw her. She attended lots of conferences and seminars, not only in the US but abroad too, and she was almost always away. Even when she was here, they hardly saw her. It was as if they had a beautiful home all to themselves.

“I don’t see him all the time. We can still do stuff together.”

“He might have a friend!” Heather sat down beside her.

“That’s the reason you want to meet him?” Heather’s love life yo-yoed up and down and she changed guys with more frequency than she changed her hair styles. “What’s wrong with that? He might have some gorgeous friends.”

Melissa was in between pushing another spoonful of warm, creamy pasta to her mouth and responding to her friend’s desperate pleas for a romance. The pasta won out. The taste of it, with the creamy cheese and stodgy macaroni that melted in her mouth, was the very thing she needed tonight. Matt had been a bit moody for the rest of the day and luckily she’d had been so busy at work that she didn’t have time to mope around wondering why.

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